It’s All or Nothing, Vale

A poignant novel in verse in which, after a life-changing accident, one girl finds her way back to her life’s passion. From the Newbery Honor-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All.

All these months of staring at the wall?
All these months of feeling weak?
It’s ending--
I’m going back to fencing.
And then it’ll be
like nothing ever happened.

No one knows hard work and dedication like Valentina Camacho. And Vale’s thing is fencing. She’s the top athlete at her fencing gym. Or she was . . . until the accident.

After months away, Vale is finally cleared to fence again, but it’s much harder than before. Her body doesn’t move the way it used to, and worst of all is the new number one: Myrka. When she sweeps Vale aside with her perfect form and easy smile, Vale just can’t accept that. But the harder Vale fights to catch up, the more she realizes her injury isn’t the only thing holding her back. If she can’t leave her accident in the past, then what does she have to look forward to?

In this moving novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All, one girl finds her way back to her life’s passion and discovers that the sum of a person’s achievements doesn’t amount to the whole of them.

Andrea Beatriz Arango is the author of Newbery Honor Book Iveliz Explains It All and Pura Belpré Honor Book Something Like Home. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and is a former public school teacher with almost a decade of teaching experience. Andrea now writes the types of children’s books she wishes students had more access to. She balances her life in New Orleans with trips home to see her family and eat lots of tostones de pana. When she’s not busy writing, you can find her enjoying nature in the nearest forest or body of water.